


Literally Tragic

by cdybedahl



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1409737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cdybedahl/pseuds/cdybedahl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some time after Ann and Chris move away from Pawnee, they stop answering when Leslie calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Literally Tragic

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much a fix-it fic for Ann leaving.

“You have to do something about Leslie.”  
Donna, Tom and April stands in front of Ron’s desk glaring at him with varying degrees of success. The best glarer by far, Donna, is also the speaker.  
“No,” Ron says.  
He returns his attention to the small airplane he’s whittling for his son. Donna and April may give a good scary glare, but they’re no match for the Swanson indifference.  
“Come on, Ron!” Tom whines. “She’s gone crazy. Crazier. She wants us to work _all the time_.”  
“Seriously, all the time,” April says. “She wanted me to go out all night and count raccoons, because she’s planning to sell advertisement space on them.”  
“And I won’t even _tell_ you what she wanted me to do,” Tom says. “Seriously, The Bulge is her turf, not mine.”  
“She wants us to work days _and_ nights,” Donna says. “That’s not OK. And I thought you’d be all for getting less work done here!”  
Ron sighs heavily.  
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll talk to her.”  
“And the way she’s smiling, man!” Tom says. “She looks like Heath Ledger in that bat dude movie. It’s creepy.”  
“Yeah,” April says. “She totally does. It’s pretty awesome.”  
She turns her head and smiles into the camera.

Leslie’s office is a mess. There are stacks of papers on every horizontal surface, and most of the walls are covered with post-its, photos and pieces of string.  
“Oh, hi Ron!” Leslie says.  
Her hair is messy. There are dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes. Her jacket is rumpled. She’s busy re-arranging the strings between different post-its and photos.  
“Leslie,” he says. “The workers tell me you’ve gone crazy. I see they have a point.”  
“Nonsense!” she says, turning to him and wiping her hands on her jacket. “I’m fine. Just working hard. There’s so much that didn’t get done while I was on campaign. Lots of catching up to do.”  
“April said you want to sell ad space on raccoons,” he says.  
“Yes!” she says. “Isn’t it brilliant? Turn a pest into a profit! That’s dollars that won’t have to come off your taxes!”  
“I appreciate the sentiment,” he says. “But the idea is still crazy. Raccoons are small and nocturnal. Nobody would see the ads.”  
Leslie stares at him for a few seconds.  
“Maybe we could make the signs with glowing paint,” she says. “That could work!”  
“Leslie,” Ron says. “When did you last sleep?”  
Her already creepily wide grin widens a bit further.  
“Sleep schmeep,” she says. “Who needs sleep? Sleep is for babies and old people!”  
He raises his eyebrows.  
“When?” he says.  
Her smiles vanishes. She looks away.  
“Three, maybe four days ago,” she says.  
“Go home,” Ron says. “Sleep. Come back Monday.”  
“Nooo!” Leslie says. “I have so much to do!”  
“The gaggle of misfits out there handled things just fine while you were campaigning,” Ron says. “They can handle things for the rest of the week.”  
His voice softens a bit.  
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Leslie,” he says. “Nor do I care. But as a friend, I can tell you’re not in a good place. So go home. Sleep until you’re back to your senses, then deal with it like a man.”  
Leslie sighs. Her shoulders slump.  
“All right,” she says. “I’m not good. It’s…”  
“Ah!” he interrupts. “I don’t want to know. Just go home.”

The first thing Leslie does when she wakes up many hours later is check her phone. By now she doesn’t really expect the message she’s hoping for to be there, but her heart still sinks a bit when she sees the blank screen. She also notes that it’s late morning. She could call. She filled up the voice mail weeks ago, but there’s still a chance that she’d get an answer. And Ben is at work, so he can’t look sad and ask her to give it up.  
She gets up, showers and has a cup of coffee before her willpower finally fails. She dials with movements long since gone automatic, and waits for the call to connect and the two cheery recorded voices to tell her that she’s called Ann and Chris. As if she didn’t know.  
It takes her several seconds to comprehend that she’s not hearing the cheery message. Instead it’s an automated phone company voice.  
“The number you have dialed has been disconnected,” it says. “Your call cannot be completed at this time.”  
Along with the understanding comes panic.

“Leslie!” Ben says when she comes barging into his office. “I thought you had the rest of the week off?”  
“I do,” she says. “I need to talk to boss-Ben.”  
He turns away from his computer screen.  
“All right,” he says. “Boss Ben is here.”  
“Good,” Leslie says. “Er, I believe I have some vacation days to use?”  
“Oh, yeah,” Ben says. “I’ve been meaning to try to get Ron to talk to you about that.”  
“Really?” Leslie says. “Why?”  
“Because you’ve never used a single one,” Ben says. “You have more than ten years’ worth of vacation due, and it’s starting to look bad on the balance sheet. So Ron, as your direct superior, should talk to you about using them.”  
“Oh,” she says. “Well, I’m using some now. I’m not sure how many yet.”  
“That’s OK,” Ben says. “Take as many as you need. The more, the better. Er, can I be husband-Ben for a moment? Even though we’re in City Hall?”  
“Sure,” Leslie says. “Go ahead.”  
“Please don’t tell me this is about Ann,” he says.  
“All right,” Leslie says. “I won’t.”  
“Ok. So what is it about?”  
“It’s about Chris.”  
Ben frowns.  
“Chris?” he says. “What about him?”  
“I need to go and find out what’s happened to him,” Leslie says.  
Ben makes his surprised face.  
“Happened?” he says. “Something’s happened to Chris?”  
“Neither he nor a woman not to be named but whom he has a child with has answered their phones for several weeks,” Leslie said. “And today their phone number was disconnected.”  
“That doesn’t sound good,” Ben says.  
“No,” Leslie says. “So I’m going to use some vacation days to go to Michigan and find out what’s happened.”  
“To Chris. Not Ann.”  
“It may be that in the process of finding out what happened to Chris I may also accidentally learn what, if anything, has happened to the mother of his son.”  
Ben sighs.  
“This so is about Ann,” he says.  
“And Chris!” Leslie protests. “They’re an item. They live together. They have a child together. They are committed. To each other. Exclusively.”  
“Yeah,” Ben says, reluctantly. “I wish I could come with you, but I can’t really take any time off right now.”  
“While I, as Ron pointed out yesterday, am not really needed for Parks and Recreation to work any more.”  
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what he said,” Ben says. “Although it may well be what you heard. But he’s right. They can do without you. You can leave. So I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”  
She gets up, gives him a quick kiss.  
“Great!” she says. “You’re the best husband ever!”  
She’s out the door before he can respond. It doesn’t really surprise him to see her, a minute later, jump into her already packed car and head north. Getting her to stay in Pawnee was a lost battle before she ever entered his office.

Leslie clearly remembers the first time she ever saw Ann. How could she forget? An amazingly beautiful woman stood up with a complaint that actually made sense. It was disappointing that she mentioned a boyfriend almost at once, but Leslie had gotten used to that sort of disappointment many years ago. Most women were straight after all, and given that Leslie wanted a career in politics maybe that was just as well.  
Even so, she couldn’t make herself stay away from Ann. And, amazingly, it turned out that Ann had just as hard a time staying away from Leslie. She might protest and say she didn’t like it, but her actions said otherwise. Sometimes also her words.  
“I’m so happy I met you,” she said late one night while they were sitting drinking beer at the edge of the pit.  
“Aw, thanks,” Leslie said. “I’m happy I met you too.”  
“No, I’m serious,” Ann said. “I’ve always been terrible at making friends. Before you, I only really knew Andy, and I’m not even sure how that happened. Now I have you and most of the Parks and Rec department.”  
“But we haven’t even managed to get this pit filled in yet!” Leslie said.  
Ann looked at her for a few moments.  
“That doesn’t matter,” she said.  
“Of course it matters!” Leslie said, and went on to rant about it for some time.  
Looking back, she wondered what might have happened if she’d followed up on what Ann was saying. What, if anything, she was trying to get out but couldn’t.

It’s late afternoon by the time Leslie arrives at the address she’s been sending gifts for young Oliver to. It’s a tidy little house in a tidy little suburb with a tidy green lawn and tidy white fence and a tidily dressed middle-aged woman putting up a “For Sale” sign. Leslie’s heart just about stops. Until now, she’s been able to make herself believe that it’s just been a mistake with the phone company. But this is no mistake. She can see through the windows that the house is empty. She stops the car right in front of the tidy little gate in the tidy white fence and steps out.  
“Excuse me!” she says. “Excuse me!”  
The woman with the sign looks at her.  
“Can I help you?” she says.  
“I sure hope so,” Leslie says.  
She offers her hand.  
“Hi,” she says. “I’m Leslie Knope, from Pawnee, Indiana.”  
“Pleased to meet you, miss Knope,” the woman says. “I’m…”  
“Why is this house being sold?” Leslie interrupts her. “And who’s selling it?”  
“Are you interested in buying?” the woman says.  
“No, no, not at all,” Leslie says. “But friends of mine used to live here, and they never mentioned moving away. They just moved here half a year ago! It’s just four months since they had a baby, for crying out loud!”  
“I… see,” the woman says. “What were your friends’ names?”  
“Ann Perkins and Chris Traeger,” Leslie says. “They’re both gorgeous and very nice. Particularly Ann. She may be the most beautiful woman alive.”  
The realtor gives Leslie a weird look.  
“Mr Traeger is the seller,” she says. “He did leave a phone number for prospective buyers to contact him.”  
“Great! Can I have it please?”  
“You are not a prospective buyer,” the woman says. “You said just a few moments ago that you have no interest in buying.”  
Leslie glares at her.  
“Fine,” she says. “I changed my mind. I’ll give you a hundred dollars for the house.”  
The woman laughs.  
“Miss Knope, surely you realize that that is not a serious bid for any house.”  
“Maybe not,” Leslie says. “But now I am a prospective buyer. So give me that phone number.”

Possibly it was wrong of Leslie to keep harping on how beautiful Ann was. But she couldn’t help herself. If she couldn’t display her admiration for and attraction to that beauty in the ways she most desired, at least she could occasionally shout it to the world. For talky values of “shout” and very local values of “the world”. But still. She needed to let it out in some way. She was a moth to Ann’s flame. She couldn’t stop herself from getting close, but the closer she got the more painfully it burned her.  
“Oh God, my back is killing me,” Ann said late one night in the Parks and Rec offices.  
They were folding flyers that had to be ready the following day. Everyone but Leslie and Ann had already given up and gone home. Leslie stayed because the very idea of stopping before it was done didn’t occur to her. Ann stayed… Leslie wasn’t sure why Ann stayed. She’d come to the offices directly from a shift at the hospital, already tired, and stayed to help far longer than the people who actually worked there.  
“Can I do something to help?” Leslie said. “Donna has one of those bag things you heat in the microwave. I could get that and heat it for you. Or I could give you some massage.”  
“Would you?” Ann said. “That’d be awesome. We got this huge unconscious guy into the ER, and I had to hold him in a really awkward position for a really long time so the doctor could get at his wound.”  
“Of course I would!” Leslie said.  
“You’re my best friend!” she added, to remind herself.  
She moved behind Ann and started massaging her shoulders. Shoulders were safe territory. At least as safe as any part of Ann was, when it came to Leslie getting to touch her. Even as little as this had her heart speeding up.  
“Oh, that’s nice,” Ann said. “But do you think you could do lower down? The shoulders are not really the problem.”  
“It’s kind of hard to reach while you’re sitting up,” Leslie said.  
“That’s OK,” Ann said. “This is nice. I’ll make do with what I can get.”  
There might have been a slight wistful tone in that last sentence. Or, more likely, Leslie’s brain was engaging in wishful interpretation of nothing.  
“There’s a couch in my office,” she said.  
“It’s got stacks of paper taller than me on it!” Ann said.  
“I’ll move them,” Leslie said.  
“And then we’ll both have sore backs,” Ann said.  
“I’ll just push them over,” Leslie said. “That doesn’t take much at all.”  
Ann laughed.  
“Yeah, right,” she said. “You messing up your papers on purpose. That’ll be the day.”  
“Well, it’s night,” Leslie said. “Come on.”  
She dragged Ann with her into her office, and as she had suggested simply pushed the paper stacks on the couch over. The last few papers left were easy enough to toss aside.  
“There,” she said. “Lie down.”  
“Wow,” Ann said, smiling. “You must really like me.”  
“Don’t I tell you all the time?” Leslie said.  
Ann laid down on the couch, resting her head on her arms. Leslie swallowed, steeled herself and then straddled Ann’s ass. It was the only reasonable place to sit if she was to be able to give any kind of useful massage, but it still felt far too intimate. She leaned forward and put her hands on Ann’s blouse-clad back far up between the shoulder blades.  
“There?” she said.  
“Yeah,” Ann said. “Hang on a moment.”  
Ann pulled her blouse up under her armpits, then with a grunt reached her arms up her back so she could undo her bra strap.  
“There,” she said, relaxing again. “That should make it easier. Or maybe I should just lose the blouse entirely?”  
Leslie licked her lips. She really didn’t think she could deal with that without doing something incredibly bad and stupid.  
“It’s still my office,” she said. “In City Hall. Which has watchmen. Making rounds.”  
She wasn’t sure if they still did, after the last round of budget cuts, but it was a good excuse.  
“All right,” Ann said. “I’ll keep my clothes on. This time.”  
Leslie leaned forward and started giving Ann the promised massage. She could easily feel how tense and knotted the long muscles next to the spine were, and tried to put most of her weight there.  
“This time?” she said. “Are you planning for this to happen again?”  
“I’ll have to repay you some time, won’t I?” Ann said.  
“And that means _you_ have to take your top off?”  
“Maybe not have to, but you should, so it’d only be fair if I did too, don’t you think?”  
“Does that mean I should take my bra off now?”  
Ann laughed.  
“I can’t tell if you do or not from down here,” she said, “so do as you please.”  
“I’ll think I’ll stay dressed,” Leslie said.  
“Maybe that’s just as well,” Ann said.  
Again, that tinge of wistful sadness that Leslie couldn’t quite tell if it was real or just her own imagination. Although it was hard to imagine what else Ann might have meant with that. She kept the massage going, feeling the muscles gradually relax under her hands.  
What if Ann was feeling something she never spoke about? Leslie did, so it obviously wasn’t impossible. As her hands traveled up and down Ann’s back, feeling her soft warmth all the way, the thought that they might both want the same thing but were too scared to say anything grew ever stronger. Eventually, she couldn’t keep quiet any more. If there was ever a moment to risk saying something, this was it. Alone with Ann late at night, in a situation that was friendly yet highly intimate.  
“Ann?” she said. “If you could see from down there, would you want me to take my bra off then?”  
No response.  
“Ann?” she repeated, softly.  
Regular, deep breaths came from the woman under her. Sleeping. Leslie couldn’t help laughing a little.  
“Well,” she whispered to herself. “As you said, maybe that’s just as well.”

She’s been waiting in the restaurant for half an hour when Chris gets there. She doesn’t mind, it’s good enough that he can show up at all with no notice like this.  
“Leslie!” Chris says, spreading his arms in an invitation to hug. He looks tired. “That’s literally the best surprise I could possibly have gotten today!”  
For a moment his smile falters, but then reasserts itself.  
“Chris!” Leslie says. She stands up and accepts his hug.  
The hug goes on for rather longer than usual. Leslie doesn’t mind. She can see that something bad has happened to him. He can probably use a good hug. When he finally lets go, she sees that he’s crying.  
“Hey now,” she says. “What’s happening?”  
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says, smiling while tears keep trickling down his face. “It’s just so overwhelming to see someone from when times were good.”  
Leslie sits down. He does too, across the table from her in the booth. A waiter appears, and they spend a few minutes looking at menus and making choices.  
“So,” Chris said when the waiter has left. “What brings you here, Leslie Knope?”  
He’s stopped crying but is still smiling.  
“You and Ann,” Leslie says. “You haven’t been answering your phone for ages, and now I find you’re selling the house? You’re talking about Pawnee as when times were good? What happened? _Where is Ann_?”  
“Yes,” he says, looking away. “I’m sorry. After a while we couldn’t bear checking our messages any longer and just gave up.”  
Leslie leans forward.  
“Chris,” she says. “What. Happened.”  
He visibly gathers strength before answering.  
“SIDS,” he said. “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. That’s what happened.”  
Leslie stares at him in shock.  
“Little Oliver?” she says. “He’s dead?”  
Chris nods.  
“Oh my God,” Leslie says.  
She has no idea what to say. This she did not expect. She hadn’t even thought of something happening to the baby as a possibility. But now that she hears it, it’s possibly the most likely thing to make Ann and Chris behave like they did.  
“I put him to bed as usual one evening,” Chris says. “When he didn’t wake up for his usual post-midnight feeding, Ann went to see if he was OK. He was not. He was dead. Which is literally as not OK as it gets.”  
She can see he’s close to crying again. She really can’t blame him.  
“Oh, Chris,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”  
She wants to say more, but what is there to say?  
“We were not even a risk group,” he says. “We made sure to follow the advice from the Safe Sleep campaign. Ann was not a young mother, so low risk there. Neither of us smokes, nor ever did. But the risk was still about one in two thousand. And it happened.”  
“How did Ann take it?” Leslie asks. “She really wanted that baby.”  
“Not well,” he says. “As is understandable and natural. There was some screaming and blaming and accusing. From both sides. I did not take it well either.”  
“Oh God,” Leslie says. “How is she now?”  
“I don’t know,” Chris says. “Six weeks ago she said that she couldn’t stand living in the house where her son died, or with her dead son’s father, and then she left. I have not seen or heard from her since. She did not tell me where she was going.”  
Their food arrives. Neither of them pays much attention.  
“She’s alone out there?” Leslie says. “With no friends or family, just grief and pain?”  
The cold shock is turning into anger inside Leslie. No matter what has happened, Ann should not have to face it alone. That she’s doing that is absolutely and totally unacceptable.  
“I’m afraid she is,” Chris says. “I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do. I am one of the things she wanted to get away from.”  
“ _You could have called me_!”  
Leslie is as surprised as Chris looks to find that she is screaming at him. Suddenly, she’s _furious_. Not at him, or at least not very much at him, but at the entire universe that lets something like this happen to such a perfect human being as Ann Perkins. She forcibly lowers her voice. She stands up.  
“Excuse me,” she says. “But I have to go find Ann.”

It didn’t happen often that Ann was sad. Kind of down, yes, that happened fairly frequently. But it was usually quite easy for Leslie to get her out of it. But really sad, like after a relationship ended, that didn’t happen much and when it did it was not easy to get her out of it. One of the very few times Ann unexpectedly came by Leslie’s house had been like that. Leslie had been sitting peacefully at home so late a Saturday evening that it was technically Sunday, catching up on some paperwork, when her doorbell rang.  
“My life sucks,” was the first thing Ann said after Leslie opened the door. “And it doesn’t get any better. It just keeps sucking.”  
Leslie gestured at her to get in, then guided her to the couch.  
“How much have you had to drink?” she asked.  
“Not enough,” Ann said. “Since I’m still conscious.”  
“Wait here,” Leslie said. “I’ll make some cocoa.”  
“What do I need to do, Leslie?” Ann said some time later, mug of steaming brown liquid heaped with whipped cream in her hand. “Why can’t I find someone to share my life with?”  
“Bad date?” Leslie asked.  
She was sitting next to Ann on the couch, but turned toward her and with her knees pulled up under her chin.  
“No,” Ann said. “It was a pretty good date.”  
“So what’s the problem?”  
Ann sipped her cocoa and got a speck of whipped cream on the tip of her nose. Leslie reached out and wiped it off with her finger.  
“He was nice. Looked good. Could have dressed better. Had a decent job in sales. Was quite funny.”  
Ann sighed.  
“And he bored me to tears,” she said. “I tried to picture myself living with that guy, or another guy like him, and I just couldn’t. I’d go stir crazy and end up stabbing him with a scalpel.”  
“He sounds better than Andy, and you lived with him for two years,” Leslie said.  
“But that’s it!” Ann said. “Andy is a giant baby. He’s abysmally stupid, takes nothing seriously, he’s as poor as a church mouse, he can’t take care of himself and he’s generally a complete loser. But he’s not dull. He can be very, very fun. Being with him was frequently aggravating, but it was never _boring_.”  
She let her head fall back against the sofa, staring up at the ceiling.  
“And that, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “Is the longest relationship I’ve had.”  
“So basically, you want Andy but smart and successful?”  
“Andy wouldn’t _be_ Andy if he was smart and successful,” Ann said. “My perfect dream guy is more like a male version of you.”  
The breath caught in Leslie’s throat and her heart stopped. So close and yet so very, very far.  
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “I think that’ll be hard to find.”  
“Yeah,” Ann said. “Ergo, my life sucks.”  
She raised her head and turned her entire body toward Leslie.  
“Do you ever think about it?” she said. “What it would be like to be with another woman? In a sexual way, I mean?”  
She turned away again while Leslie was still too stunned to know what to say.  
“Never mind,” Ann said. “Please ignore that I ever said that. I’m just drunk and depressed. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”  
Leslie reached out and put her hand on Ann’s shoulder. She would’ve liked to give her a hug, but a simple touch was as far as she could get without rearranging their positions a lot.  
“Don’t say that,” she said. “I’m always here for you. I’ll always _be_ here for you.”  
Ann laid her hand on top of Leslie’s.  
“I know,” she said. “I know.”  
For some reason, she sounded like that thought didn’t make her any happier.

It is past eight in the evening when Leslie arrives at the hospital. She parks the car and walks over to the ER entrance. It looks like a slow night. There are a couple of ambulances with their crews sitting around a short way away, and only a handful of cars are parked in the ER parking lot. Leslie didn’t use that lot, since she’s not here because she needs help. Better leave it for someone who does.  
“Excuse me?” she says to the nurse at the ER reception desk. “Hi. My name is Leslie Knope. I’m wondering if my friend Ann Perkins is on duty tonight?”  
The nurse, a woman old enough to have steel-gray hair and with a glare that says that she’s seen it all and is not impressed, looks at Leslie. Leslie smiles. The nurse does not smile back, but she does look down among her papers.  
“Yes,” she says. “But she’s with a patient. She may be busy for a while.”  
Internally, Leslie gives a happy shout.  
“That’s fine,” she says. “It’s a surprise visit, so I’ll just wait here, if you don’t mind.”  
“If you want to spend your evening sitting in a waiting room, that’s none of my beeswax,” she says. “Enjoy.”  
“Thank you,” Leslie says.  
She sits down on a not very comfortable plastic-clad couch. There are only a handful people in the room. Leslie herself, of course. A young woman with a makeshift bandage around her hand. A young man lying down on one of the couches and holding his hands to his stomach. A sleeping homeless old man. Nothing extraordinary. Leslie takes out a couple of reports she hasn’t had time to read and starts doing so.  
More than two hours pass. All the other people get taken in and seen to. Leslie is well into the third report when she suddenly hears a very familiar voice.  
“I’m going on my lunch break,” she hears Ann say. “They should be down from ward 4 to pick up the patient soon, but I talked to them already and they know the situation.”  
“OK,” the grumpy old nurse says. “There’s someone waiting for you.”  
“For me?” Ann says. “But no one knows…”  
She turns around as she speaks and sees Leslie sit there looking straight at her.  
“Oh my God,” Ann says. “Leslie.”  
She looks like she’s seeing a ghost. Leslie stands up and cautiously approaches.  
“Hello, Ann,” she says. “I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I didn’t know how else to find you.”  
“I can’t believe you’re here!” Ann says. “I…!”  
She falls silent and just shakes her head.  
“When your phone number was disconnected I came to find you,” Leslie says. “I found Chris, and he told me what had happened. I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t be there for you, Ann.”  
Ann looks away, and Leslie can see that she’s brimming over with emotion. She doesn’t cry nearly as easily as Chris, but it doesn’t look like it’s far away.  
“That’s OK,” Ann mumbles. “I could have called.”  
She visibly pulls herself together.  
“How did you even find me?”  
Leslie shrugs.  
“Chris said you took off with little warning. So you’d need some way to support yourself. And you’re a nurse, so that would be the easiest job for you to get. So I started calling places that employ nurses and asking for you.”  
Ann stares at her.  
“But there are…!” she says. “How many places did you call?”  
“Three hundred and forty-seven,” Leslie says. “Four of them had Ann Perkinses working for them. The first three turned out not to be you.”  
Ann makes a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob.  
“Nobody but you would even think to do that, much less actually do it,” she says.  
“I’ll do that and more for the people I love,” Leslie says.  
She doesn’t add the “even if they cannot love me back in the way I would wish for” that she’s thinking.  
Ann’s eyes fall.  
“Yeah, about that,” she says. “Leslie, that’s why I left Pawnee. That’s why I went away.”  
A chill goes through Leslie.  
“Because I love you?” she asks.  
“No!” Ann says. “Yes! No.”  
She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again.  
“Because _I_ love _you_ ,” she says.  
Leslie frowns.  
“I know you do,” she says. “You’ve told me lots of times.”  
“No, you don’t,” Ann says. “Leslie, I _love_ you. Not in a friend way. I’m madly in love with my straight best friend. It’s a classic. I thought I could deal with it, and I did for years, but then you got married to Ben and slowly it just became too much. After Oliver, I knew that you’d come running if you heard about it, but I was – and still is – too much of a wreck emotionally to deal with unrequited love on top of it. So now you know, and _God_ you came looking for me you amazing crazy woman and I want you so much right now and would you please just go away?”  
Leslie stands staring at Ann in the unflattering light of the ER fluorescents, thunderstruck. She can’t believe what she’s just heard. The shock and amazement is so strong that she can hardly breathe.  
“What did you just say about me?” she manages to get out.  
Ann looks at her, smiling sadly.  
“I love you, Leslie,” she says. “I want to hold you and kiss you and make love to you and live with you forever. But you don’t want that. You’re just the best friend anyone could ever hope for. I know your romantic love is for men.”  
For once, Leslie Knope is struck speechless. Words fail her. She has no idea what to say. There are far too many things that want out at the same time. Some of them are elation, exuberance at the revelation that _Ann loves her_. Some of them are pain and anger at all the missed years. Some are desire, pure intense lust. All of it mixed into one huge mess.   
Some small part of her works well enough to decide that if words aren’t working, action will have to take their place. She reaches out, puts her arms around Ann’s neck and pulls her into a kiss.  
Ann freezes. Her words, her everything just stops. For a few moments, it seems to Leslie that everything teeters at the edge of an abyss. Then she feels Ann’s body relax and her lips accept Leslie’s kiss. Their bodies press close. Leslie feels Ann’s tongue touch her lips, and she eagerly opens her mouth to let it in. She drinks in Ann’s taste, Ann’s smell, Ann’s warmth, Ann’s softness. The intensity of it all makes a sob force its way out.   
Ann pulls away and stares at Leslie.  
“What?” she says.  
“I’m in love with my straight best friend too,” Leslie says.  
Her vision is blurring. She blinks furiously and momentarily clears the tears away.  
“What?” Ann says again. “ _Me_?”  
Leslie nods.  
“Of course you, you beautiful, beautiful angel,” she says. “Who else but you?”  
Ann stares at her in silence again. Leslie looks back at her, crying and smiling.  
“How long?” Ann says.  
“Since the first time I saw you,” Leslie says. “Since you stood up at that meeting and complained about the pit.”  
“Oh my God,” Ann says. “All these years?”  
Leslie nods.  
“And you,” she says. “All these years?”  
Ann nods.  
“All these years,” she repeats. “All these years.”  
Leslie puts her arms around Ann again, but this time she just hugs her and rests her head on Ann’s shoulder. Ann immediately hugs her back. For a long, long while they simply stand there holding each other.  
“Britt?” Ann says eventually, quite loudly.  
“Yes?” says the grumpy old nurse at the reception desk.  
“I’m going to call in sick for the rest of my shift,” Ann says.  
“Like Hell you are,” the old nurse says. “If someone asks, I’ll tell them you’re with someone who came into the ER. Go home, kid.”  
“Thank you,” Ann says.  
She lets go of the embrace, but briefly holds on to Leslie’s hands.  
“I need to go change,” she says.  
“But you’ll be back, right?” Leslie says. “You’re not going out the back, moving to Canada and changing your name? Because I’m not sure I have enough vacation days left to find you then.”  
For the first time since Leslie found her, Ann laughs a little. It’s weak and goes away fast, but it’s there.  
“I’ll be back in a moment,” she says.

Some time later they’re walking down the street. They’re on their way to a diner Ann knows. Leslie can’t quite believe what’s happened. From the way they both keep looking at each other and smiling, neither can Ann.  
“Do you want me to come back to Pawnee?” Ann says.  
“Yes,” Leslie says, without even thinking. “Could you share me with Ben? I hope so, because I do love him too.”  
“What if I say no?” Ann says. “To either of those?”  
Leslie falls silent. She tries to think. At the moment, it’s hard. But she has a nagging feeling that she would not have gone after Ben like she went after Ann. That if he had suddenly left without leaving any kind of forwarding address, and saying that he wanted to be alone, she would have let him. Ann, never. So maybe there isn’t much of a choice after all.  
“I’m sure this place has a Parks and Recreation department,” she says. “And if not, they need one started.”  
“You’d stay here for me?” Ann says. “Leave Pawnee? Leave Ben?”  
“I don’t really think Ben will go for sharing,” Leslie says. “He’s been jealous of you before. If I come home and go ‘Hey, Ben, by the way I’ll be sleeping with Ann too from now on’, I don’t think that would go over very well.”  
She turns to look at Ann.  
“I will be sleeping with Ann from now on, right?” she asks.  
“Well, I’m all for it,” Ann says. “But one never really knows with this Knope character. She keeps surprising you.”  
Leslie stops. They kiss again, right there on the sidewalk in a small Michigan town Leslie doesn’t even remember the name of.  
“I want to keep surprising you,” Leslie says afterwards. “But never in a way that hurts or disappoints you. Never that.”  
“That’s good to know,” Ann says.  
“Ann,” Leslie says.  
She hesitates.  
“After you left Pawnee, did you make friends? I remember you saying you’ve never been very good at it, but maybe that was when you were younger?”  
She takes one of Ann’s hands in both of her own.  
“The reason I’m asking is,” she says, not really sure how to phrase her question.  
“Did you have someone to talk to?” she tries. “When, you know. Oliver. Did you have someone who was there just for you?”  
Ann shakes her head.  
“No,” she said. “I haven’t made any friends. And there were lots of people. Chris. Police. Social workers. But nobody just for me.”  
Leslie pulls Ann’s hand up and holds it to her own heart.  
“Now there is,” she says. “Whenever you want to talk, I’ll listen.”  
“Thank you,” Ann says.  
She smiles.  
“And I will,” she says. “But not tonight. Tonight I want to be about us.”  
Leslie nods.  
“Tonight is about us,” she says.  
Hand in hand, they walk on down the sidewalk into the future.

  



End file.
